August 04, 2010

How Dry is Too Dry for Your Riesling?

The new Rooster Hill Dry Riesling has .8% residual sugar, or 8 grams of RS. Their dry riesling used to have 4 grams. There's a reason for the change.

"Our experience has shown that .4 is a niche product," Hoffman told me. "There's a much wider and more accepting market when your dry riesling is at .8."

Today my colleague Lenn Thompson reviewed a Finger Lakes dry riesling that received one of his highest scores: 91 points for the Red Tail Ridge 2008 Dry Riesling, a wine with -- did you guess it already? -- exactly .4 RS.

So what gives? Is there a market for riesling at its driest? Or is Hoffman correct, and should Finger Lakes winemakers protect their sales by adding a few grams more sugar?

Ponder your favorite rieslings from around the world as you ponder the following.

It's not easy to make a world-class riesling when RS is extremely low

"Rieslings that are four grams or less do seem to be a tough sell," says Jeff Houck, winemaker at Lucas Vineyards on Cayuga Lake. "I would have to agree with (Amy Hoffman)."

Houck finds a more willing market with his semi-dry rieslings, and that's a common sentiment across the region.

"I might agree that four grams may represent a style that is a bit more edgy, or firm, or hard," says Dave Whiting, winemaker of Red Newt Cellars on Seneca Lake. "Eight grams might be a bit smoother and more voluptuous. I'm not sure what is more widely acceptable."

There is a world of difference between a bone-dry Finger Lakes riesling that is jarringly off and a bone-dry Finger Lakes riesling that is electrically stimulating. Some producers are simply fermenting riesling until essentially totally dry, without regard to sugars, acids, and the quality of fruit. Lenn and I have come to refer to these rieslings as showing a style of "acid water." They are so buzzing and garish that there is almost no fruit upon which to hang all that acid.

It is no wonder those wines do not sell briskly.

But when the fruit is good, from a prime site, and the winemaking is careful and thoughtful and considers all elements, then a bone-dry riesling can be a beauty. It can rattle your senses and use the acidity to stretch out the finish. Red Tail Ridge's 2008 Dry Riesling is a nice example, as are the dry rieslings from Ravines Wine Cellars on Keuka Lake.

"I do believe that working at the low sugar level requires extreme precision in the balance of the wine," says Ravines winemaker Morten Hallgren. "Any imperfection, phenolics or lack of balance will show up. Having higher sugar levels will allow you to disguise these flaws, and it's commonly done that way. But the lower sugar level seems to allow a greater purity and focus of aromas and will offer more satisfying food pairings."

Hallgren uses that word -- balance -- to make a vital point...

Sugar really has (almost) nothing to do with it

"If the fruit is right, a wine can for sure handle a sugar level as low as four grams or even lower than that," says Johannes Reinhardt, winemaker at Anthony Road Wine Company on Seneca Lake. "It can still be very well accepted by a broader audience. Balance is the key word. If a wine is balanced it will sell!"

But this point goes both ways.

"A wine with eight grams of sugar can be off balance, too," Reinhardt points out.

At Lucas, Houck makes the same observation. "There are all kinds of variables that would influence the wine's balance. The acidity, pH, and ethanol would all play a part in the wine. The sugar is only one component."

Still, Houck admits, "Usually I find the very dry rieslings to be edgier but probably a bit much for many drinkers."

So is this category of riesling a "niche product" destined to fizzle in the tasting room or stores shelves? Vinny Aliperti, winemaker at Atwater Estate and Billsboro Winery on Seneca Lake, can envision more wine drinkers embracing the bone-dry style.

"Bone dry, four to eight grams, is a growing niche in the Finger Lakes," Aliperti says. "I expect it will continue expanding. Ten to twenty grams, especially in years like 2008 and 2009, is closer to the most widely acceptable style of riesling."

Some trends fade away, while others take time to gain wider acceptance. That's exactly the point made by Paul Brock, an instructor at Finger Lakes Community College and the former head winemaker at Lamoreaux Landing on Seneca Lake.

"Either sugar level can be balanced in a respectable dry style and successfully marketed to the masses," Brock says. "Acid, pH, aroma and body are all going to weigh heavily on the acceptance in a blind tasting. What is niche in one winery or region could be totally widely accepted at another winery or region. Things could change over time."

The future of Finger Lakes riesling

Debates like this one reveal that Finger Lakes riesling can be world-class without being forced into one specific box. The region needs more diversity of style in its riesling, not less, and it is turning out stunning wines at all sugar levels.

But the pursuit of a world-class bone-dry riesling must be handled delicately. There are enough poor examples on shelves right now. Enamel is a nice asset for a set of human teeth, and searing it off with acid water is an unkind trick to turn.

Thrillingly, more producers are learning to combine site and fruit with the care necessary to make a dry riesling to rattle the mind and inspire the senses. Each customer will find their own preference, and the range of options is vast. As it should be.

Comments

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I think it all comes down the acid levels. If you have a year with ample growing days (like 2010 seems to be), the sugars will be up, acids will be down, and yuou'll be able to doa good .4RS wine. In a cooler season with fewer growing days (2009) I would think that a .8RS level would offset the acids and flaws in a potentially underripe vintage.

BALANCE is always the key, even in the conversation. Talking about sugar serves to highlight one thing without a sense of balance in the conversation.

With no apparent standard for what constitutes a balanced wine (and no particular means to come to such a standard) "balance," has become a relatively subjective concept. So, a fruity Riesling with .4 RS offset by .8 TA and 3.1 pH is balanced to some palates and unbalanced to others.

Any wine that forces you to focus on any single component is by nature unbalanced. Balance in wine is like the melding of four-part harmony: each voice is unique but together the four create joyous, complementary sound. Whether high or low, the numbers don't mean much if a wine is balanced, except to those of us who can't get past our own taste biases.

I forgot to add that I recently tasted a Dry Long Island Riesling produced from Finger Lakes grapes: no fruit, 13 plus % alcohol, solid acidity, and well under noticeable RS. The wine forced me to focus on its many drawbacks and not on anything pleasurable. The wine's lack of balance extended to its price of $30 a bottle.

In an attempt to produce a dry Riesling, the winemaker forgot about balance, and in the pricing, the owner forgot about value.

Thomas: Welcome back to our comments. Always great to hear from you. I actually know exactly what wine you're referring to (Evan and I had an email chat about it last week) and my review is coming.

Several Long Island producers got in on that same lot of Seneca Lake juice and the varying resultant wines is pretty fascinating. Perhaps I need to gather them for a side-by-side-by-side-by-side tasting sometime.

For various reasons, I have tempered and reduced my commenting on the Internet, until such time as there is a subject that I feel I can contribute to--without starting an argument ;)

If you do that side-by-side-by-side I'd love to know how it turns out. After tasting the particular Riesling I mention I wondered concerning the efficacy (regarding reputation) of one region/appellation selling grapes to another region and then the latter region identifying the former on the label, but the wine does not live up to the reputation of the grape source.

I also wonder why the Finger Lakes region has Riesling grapes to sell, but that has nothing to do with this discussion.

You know we don't mind an argument here on the NYCR every now and again.

I can think of 5 (maybe 6) producers down here who used that Finger Lakes juice to make a varietal riesling in 2009 and then at least two others (with some likely overlap) that used it for a value white blend.

Both value blends are winners in my book but none of the varietal rieslings have been reviewed yet.

Thomas brings up a really interesting point about how the practice of selling grapes could potentially mar the image of a region that has struggled to elevate its reputation. What's your thought on that?

On a side note, this past weekend I opened 3 FLX Rieslings from Red Newt with a diverse group of neighbors (USA, Australia, China, Malaysia) and the one that got the most comments/questions was the driest of the group.

In all the revelry I forgot to write down exact vintages and wine names. My bad.

Sue: Thomas raises an interesting point, but I'm not sure it puts the selling region at risk. Finger Lakes wineries have been buying reds from Long Island (usually labeling them New York though) for years.

A few LI producers making Finger Lakes-labeled wines isn't going to have much impact I don't think. They aren't big-production wines and some of them are good -- not embarrassing at all.

It IS interesting, however, that there is Finger Lakes riesling to be had given the "rumors" that some of the larger FLX producers are buying west coast riesling juice/bulk wine!

Some Finger Lakes Riesling grapes are sold to a winemaker in California as well--or at least have been sold in the past. While the only thing that can do for California is to raise its Riesling status, a bad wine can hurt the appellation on the label, especially one that continues to suffer the low esteem of so many wine geeks.

As to your other point: it is a mystery to me why Finger Lakes Riesling goes out of and West Coast Riesling comes into the region. The only possible explanation is tonnage price--but saving on tonnage could in the long run produce a pyrrhic victory, as selling lower end product might also put holes in the reputation. Such practices have a historical record that dates back to the Phoenicians and it is the reason behind the collapse of a few well-known historical wine regions.